Antoine Arena’s Rosé

During 2016 I had the pleasure of going wine hunting in five satellites: Pays Basque, Catalonia, Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily. I imagine them breaking the colonial chains that bind and forming a United Independent States for strength in numbers while controlling their own destinies. Corsica has been free only a handful of years during recorded history. And we think our political situation stinks?

Imagine, what if you were Corsican with a Roman name like Arena, and every move you made was controlled by French bureaucrats? Yikes, no, you wouldn’t dig it.

Speaking of Arena … I’m not sure why, but Antoine Arena’s 2015 rosé comes to mind. Antoine is the one who first showed the world how great Corsican wine can be. I tasted with him and his two sons this summer, and their rosé caught me by surprise, because they did everything right in the making of it, according to me. I’m sure you’ll see how different it is from the technological Provençal rosés that are so hip these days. For those interested: native yeasts, malo completed, gently bottled without filtration. Wow! Nor was it hurried into bottle to meet some arbitrary, springtime Rosé “Nouveau” release date.

Taste it alongside almost any Côtes-de-Provence rosé—it’s like comparing real wine with pink lace panties.

Antoine himself is so genuine, he is a favorite of everybody in the wine biz who has had the luck to spend time with him. He and his sons work together and sell the results under three separate Arena labels: Antoine, Jean-Baptiste, and Antoine-Marie. Please don’t ask me why. I asked them and ended up more puzzled than I had been. Just know that, yes, when you uncork one of their wines—this rosé, for example—you are in for an honest wine and a real treat.